Wednesday, August 31

The next Calvin Booth?

According to Inside Hoops, "Mikki the Stikki" will "probably" sign with the Supes this week. Billed as the "best player in NBDL history" (heh-heh), Moore could help the fill the Sonics' desperate need for another 7-footer who can't score.

B Con made a good point on another thread regarding Moore: namely, that signing MM has to mean fewer minutes for Radman. He's right, with MM in tow, that has to mean that Collison is going to be playing PF more often, which means fewer avail. minutes for Radman.

MM may not play that much though. He might be there just to add depth in case of injury, or some other situation in which we run out of bigs. I'm afraid of what could happen with Fortson more than anyone though. If he doesn't get minutes he is unhappy and fortson is the worst person to have unhappy. They minutes in the frontcourt are shrinking for Vlade, but looking at the roster it seems like we'll need Vlade's scoring........PG: Luke/Brunson 17ppg?...... SG: Ray/Tre 22ppg?......SF: Rashard/Wilkins 28ppg?...... PF: Nick/Danny 18ppg?........ C: Potato/Moore/Swift 13ppg?....... That is a really optimistic approach at getting 98 points. Would it work?

Well, Rick Sund made an intelligent move and signed Mikki Moore. Yet, if Moore's contract is more than one season in length and worth any amount within the seven-figure range, then it's too much.

Consequently, though, Moore's signing does make it seem as if Vladimir Radmanovic is expendable.

However, Radmanovic notwithstanding, if Sund were to show some ingenuity, then he'd offer up Rashard Lewis, Danny Fortson, and Robert Swift -- since there is currently a logjam in the team's frontcourt -- to the Boston Celtics in attempt to acquire Paul Pierce.

I don't think the celtics would go for that one, and I don't think the sonics want to risk destroying their chemistry coming off a 52 win, deep into the playoffs season. I expect Vlade to be traded for expiring contracts and draft picks or something. We then get to see it Luke and Nick can step up and play the parts that need to be played alongside Ray and Rashard.

It's funny, we think of Moore as a 5, but he played the majority of his minutes as a 4 last year in LA, and the Clips actually played pretty lousy when he was at the 5. Wondering how that figures into the Sonics' decision...

AK1984, I wonder what your motivation is to signing Paul Pierce? To trade away rashard for a guy who would have to take rashards place doesn't make sense, especially at the expense of loosing Swift and Fortson. Paul Pierce can not play the 4 or 5, where all three Sonics can. Would you have Pierce off the bench? Who sits? Whats your line up look like? Why do you want to get older? I guess I really don't understand why you would trade three players, including one all-star, for a guy thats a goo-great player, but a head case? And why would the Celtics want to take Fortson? I love him and all, nut really? They won't take his $6 million in salary just to get Rashard Lewis. It does not make sense to me, please explain.By the way, Pierce and Lewis had very similar stats last year, so how does that make us better? Pierce is the first option, how do you think Ray would feel about that. Trades on paper look great, but you have to consider the whole dynamic. Just because something works mathematicaly does not mean it will work in reality.

As it is, Boston Celtics Executive Director of Basketball Operations Danny Ainge has reportedly denied any interest in trading small forward Paul Pierce.*

Yet, that notwithstanding, Pierce (6'6", 230lbs.), 27, is well-known for being arrogant and selfish, which is why Ainge has reportedly soured on him.**

Anyways, as it concerns the Seattle Supersonics, they are in dire need of another superstar -- 'cause without one, y'all ought to 'xpect a decline in victories this upcoming season -- to play alongside shooting guard Ray Allen.

Thus, with all of that noted, it seem as if Supersonics General Manager Rick Sund should try to acquire Pierce from the Celtics. In any case, if Seattle were to deal Lewis ($8,571,429), power forward Danny Fortson ($6,415,584), and center Robert Swift ($1,764,480) -- who Ainge reportedly loved prior to the 2004 NBA Draft*** -- to Boston for Pierce ($13,843,157), then it would be a fair trade for both teams.

In the end, thou', the abovementioned ideas are comprised of nothin' more than one dude's crazy thoughts.

Sonics70, you hit it right on. Having Pierce would create a two superstar team, a la Kobe-Shaq, and we all know how well that turned out. You analogy of Lewis to Pippen was spot on. Lewis is a reluctant leader, but a quality athelete, having him paired with Ray is perfect. Adding a headcase to the mix with the limited talent we have would be counterproductive.

AK1984, your arguments are well presented, but I still have to disagree with you on the whole PP issue. I am curious to see what supersonics General manager Rick Sund plans to do on the Vlade front. Supersonics Assitant to the General Manager Janna Ford and Supersonice practice facility Furtado Center Director of Security Al Lima both have petitioned Chairman of the Basketball Club of Seattle Howard Schultz to sign him to a long term deal.

To be fair, Shaq-Kobe worked out to 3 championships. I think we'd all take that.

However, Allen-Pierce wouldn't work out to Diddly-squat in my opinion. I don't see how they mesh on the court at all. That and Pierce is like a more talented version of Flip Murray, pound the ball till the shot clock is almost done, then put your head down and go. You might draw fouls that way, but I don't think you draw victories. It also makes for quite possibly the ugliest basketball we've seen in the league since the mid-90s Knicks.

In my opinion you don't trade Lewis unless you get back someone who is at least as proficient on the blocks. And you aren't likely to find someone that is close to that skill level on the post that can do the other things Lewis can do. Unless we are getting someone like Elton Brand I don't like trading Lewis right now. Give this Allen-Lewis team a few more shots before we break it up.

Carl, Your right, I would take the three championships, but Bob Weiss is not the Zen Master, and neither Ray nor PP is Shaq! I only meant it in the two superstar sense, definitely not in the skill set level. I also agree on not trading Rashard unless we get equal talent. PP is a tall AD, and he plays to much isolation, similar to what GP did, which is one guy with the ball and 4 others watching the guy with the ball. When would Ray get to touch the ball if Pierce is in? Rashard just turned 26, lets let him develop more. And before anyone jumps on me to say he has played at the NBA level for 7 years, I think he is athletically prepared, mentally perhaps not.

The comments thing is useful so you know when people post on threads that aren't the main topic of conversation, so if someone has something to say about an older post, there is a chance in hell someone might read it. Usually they note the thread title though, so you know if you don't want to read someones thoughts on Vitaly's new contract.

The Spurs are going to get old one of these years. Duncan almost broke down last year, Horry is old, Barry is nothing special, neither is Rasho. If Duncan goes down then Parker and Ginobili are going to get obliterated and that team is going to fall apart. I feel like they would've done well to get young, instead they added two old, injured stars to play roles they've never played before. This team will crash in the playoffs. I'll stick my head out and say that right now. Duncan will get hurt, Ginobili will stop getting EVERY call once his trendy aura fades, and Parker will miss jump shot after jump shot, just like he does now. I look forward to Amare, Dirk, Carmelo, Ray Ray, T-Mac, Baron Davis, or whoever it might be's team absolutely murdering the Spurs second round. If this doesn't happen this year, it happens next year. I hate the Spurs, and I hope the Sonics get another shot at them. I want to see Luke do to Parker what he did to Bibby, and see Fortson flatten Ginobili everytime he tries to put his head down.

The reason I got rid of HaloScan was because it was too buggy. Often times, the number of comments wouldn't update, and any posts older than a month would show zero even if there were more than 100 (like the infamous Steve Nash post). Also, because it was hosted on HaloScan's server, whenever their site was down (which is a lot) the comments on our site would vanish. With the high traffic we're getting now, I needed something more stable.

I like a lot of things about HaloScan, though, and the guy who wrote it is a very cool open-source dude, so once it's more stable, I might go back to it.

B Con, I hate the Spurs as much as anyone and Brent Barry, well, anyone's who read anything from this site a while back knows I believe there's a special place in Hell reserved for him.

Still, I felt SA's biggest weakness last year was depth. But with NVE and Finley on board, that's erased. Plus, Nazr is a year older, and he'll get more minutes than Rasho this year. Plus, Barry's probably played his last game in SA, if media reports are at all true.

Add it all up, and SA has immensely improved their team - perhaps for the long-term but at least for the next year.